Things that pop into my head

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I only wanted to write about dead people.

I load up Mac Family Tree which I’ve been using for years and years. Their forums are filled with ‘please can we have a note taking feature that is not just ‘plain text’ linked to a person. You want to make research notes or write up about a person etc but it’s just not possible.

So I then decided to look around for applications that would help me make pretty looking notes and organise them in a way to help my research. Nothing too fancy but not just a plain old collection of post-its. It will ideally float on my desktop or run nicely in the background.

First stop, search the App store under ‘notes’. I nearly choke when the only one that looks pretty (yes looks are important when I use an App) costs £39.99. It’s called Notebook and if you click the link you will see they start by saying ‘does this desktop look familiar’. I recalled how my old mac looked just like that and this is what I want to avoid – but not at that price? I am quite the ‘lets draw a flow chart or diagram’ sort of person and I tend to think in pictures and visual representations. This app lets me do just that. I then googled note taking apps and found one that mentioned several to think about from this good article:

So I trawled through each, watching the company videos and reading up about their software.

I like to purchase from companies who have a history of keeping their software updated and fresh so went to their blogs to get a feel for what they are working on. I am drawn to their recent posts and pause to read the blog entries for October the 6th. One starts “I have seen Steve Jobs as an inspiration for my entire life…”. It was a very touching account and my mind wanders…

Then back to the task at hand. I see a couple of other things that interest me like Mac Journal – and Together – both retail for $39.95 so I head over to google a price converter which turns out to be about £25.

I ideally wanted to spend about 69p or FREE… now this has turned into a considered purchase and my dead relatives are nowhere nearer to being found and logged. What’s more, it’s raining and my cup of tea has gone cold…